


In the Intimate Imperative

by Island_of_Reil



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Anal Sex, Awkward Boners, Blow Jobs, Clothing Porn, Coming Untouched, First Time, Hand Jobs, Inner Dialogue, Loyalty, M/M, Master/Servant, Politics, Post-Canon, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:45:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An emperor must needs take his opportunities as they come, whether the opportunity to make his nation better for all its citizens, or the opportunity to let his most loyal servant know how much he is esteemed... and desired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Intimate Imperative

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackbournen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbournen/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Blackbournen. :)
> 
> Thanks so much to my beta, whom I will identify after author reveals. You did a terrific job.

> **T** O THE EMPEROR EDREHASIVAR VII DRAZHAR, GREETINGS FROM THY LOYAL & FAITHFUL EMPRESS, CSETHIRO DRAZHARAN, AT THE TOWNHOUSE OF DACH’OSMIN AIZHEÄN TATIVIN IN ASHEDRO.
> 
> I & THINE ESTEEMED SISTER THE ARCHDUCHESS ARE MUCH ENJOYING OUR VISIT. FASCINATING THOUGH THE UNICORN AUTOMATON IS, I FEAR I HAVE NOT VEDERO’S NOR AIZHEÄN’S DEPTH OF APPRECIATION. HOWEVER, AIZHEÄN AND ANOTHER FRIEND OF HERS HAVE KEPT ME ENRAPT WITH THEIR DISCUSSIONS OF METALLURGY & ITS APPLICATIONS TO BLADEWORK. THE SAME FRIEND IS ALSO QUITE KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MILITARY HISTORY & STRATEGY.
> 
> I HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY THE DACH’OSMIN IN THEIR CIRCLE WHO FOUNDED THE UNOFFICIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS WITH MAZEISE GIFTS. IT IS MY PROFOUND DESIRE TO FOUND AN OFFICIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS WITH ANY & ALL TALENTS THAT HAVE TRADITIONALLY BEEN DEEMED UNBEFITTING TO WOMEN. QUITE ASIDE FROM MY SYMPATHY FOR SUCH GIRLS, THE ETHUVERAZ CAN ILL AFFORD TO WASTE SUCH POTENTIAL. THOU MIGHT’ST CONVINCE MEN, OR WOMEN OF A TRADITIONAL BENT, WHO BALK AT THIS IDEA THAT GIRLS THWARTED IN THEIR “UNWOMANLY” AMBITIONS MAY GROW BITTER. THEY WOULD BE POOR MOTHERS AT THE LEAST &, AS SHEVEÄN HAS PROVEN, THREATS TO THE NATION AT THE WORST.
> 
> ON ANOTHER NOTE, MY MONTHLY COURSES HAVE NOT ARRIVED. I ASSUME NOTHING BY THIS, AS THEY ARE BETIMES IRREGULAR, BUT THEY ARE TARDY ENOUGH TO RAISE MY HOPES THAT I AM WITH CHILD. IF THEY HAVE NOT ARRIVED WITHIN A FORTNIGHT OF THIS WRITING, I WILL BE CERTAIN, ALTHOUGH OF COURSE I WILL ASK MERREM MARZHOVARAN THE MIDWIFE FOR CONFIRMATION. WITH CHILD OR NOT, I LOOK GREATLY FORWARD TO RETURNING TO COURT WITH VEDERO & AIZHEÄN AT THE ONSET OF THE SUMMER HEAT, WHEN I SHALL SEE THEE AGAIN & TELL THEE OF MY PLANS FOR THE GIRLS’ SCHOOL.

Maia’s eyes fondly traced the lines of her monogram. _And I look forward to thy account,_ he thought.

Then the small, dark voice that had not quite yet left his head added, _And if she carries thy child, needst not lie with her again for nigh on a year._

Guilt flushed through him like poison through a glass of metheglin. His lips twisted, and he was glad that he sat at the desk in the Tortoise Room with his back to Cala and Beshelar. Of a certainty, they must have seen his ears droop, but Maia’s ears drooped at least a dozen times for every morning’s worth of correspondence he worked his way through. On a good morning.

It was not that intimate relations with his new empress were awful. Certainly their wedding night had been, with not only his nohecharei but Csevet and Lord Berenar and a host of other witnesses to the consummation standing about their closed bedcurtains. The night had been unseasonably warm, which was a good omen for fertility of crops and empress both but made the air within the curtains close and stuffy. Maia had been completely unsure of himself. Csethiro, to her everlasting credit, made it bearable with her dry sense of humor, her affection and sympathy for him, and a basic understanding from her edocharei of how to please him. But she seemed aroused only to the point that it eased copulation, and she gently dissuaded him from trying to help her climax, which did not happen.

On subsequent evenings, their collective nohecharei excused themselves, much to Maia’s surprise and gratitude. “There are reasonable limits, Serenity,” Kiru had said drily the first night after the consummation. She pointed out that she could just as easily do her job from the antechamber as in the actual bedchamber, while Telimezh could stand on the small balcony outside the window. After all, she added, they didn’t stand over Maia during his calls to nature, did they? Telimezh, Maia had noted with well-concealed amusement, had looked as shamefully relieved as Maia himself had felt.

Yet imperial coition remained a duty, never a pleasure. At first Maia had blamed himself, wondering if he might have brought more passion to it had Csethiro looked more like Min Vechin. The thought left him feeling deeply ashamed. Though he had accepted Min Vechin’s abject apology and he certainly bore her no ill will, still she had used his infatuation with her to her own ends. Whereas Csethiro, after their difficult beginning, had been nothing but loyal and good-humored with him. She was far better suited to him than was Min Vechin in all the ways that mattered, and to find fault in so trivial and fleeting a thing as how comely she was, he knew, was beneath him.

Thus it was a profound relief to Maia when, at a festivity in the Untheileian about a week before her departure to Ashedro, he spied Csethiro pressing her hand to Vedero’s for just slightly too long for the touch to signify friendship, even deepest friendship.

The next day he had visited the Untheileneise’meire. After kneeling by his mother’s crypt in silent communion with her, he made a prayer of thanks to Cstheio Caireizhasan: that he was not failing in his duties to his empress, that she had the passion of another to supplement his near-platonic affection for her, that his sister was similarly blessed, and that Maia himself had been granted the wisdom to feel not the slightest bit disapproving — nor guilty that he felt not the slightest bit disapproving. Though he did feel guilty when he thanked the Lady of the Stars that there would be no need to lie with Csethiro again for quite some time.

He was sure, he felt, he could assuage any guilt his empress might feel over not attending to his needs. If attending to them himself was far from ideal, it was also far less awkward, and the curtains and bedclothes muffled any sounds that might carry to the attentive ears of his nohecharei.

And it left him far less cold and ill than the thought of seeking out one of the countless beautiful young people who would surely vie for the honor of being bedded by an emperor. No matter how willing they all might be, the idea of coupling with a stranger made him think of Tethimar, who had used and disposed of his “inferiors” as any man might a soiled handkerchief.

Maia was folding Csethiro’s letter, which appeared to have arrived in Csevet’s hands with seal intact — and Maia devoutly _hoped_ that was the case, because gossip of an imperial pregnancy would be cruel to Csethiro should her courses resume after all — when the door to the Tortoise Room opened. Though Maia had already seen Csevet several times that morning, once more he felt the habitual soft burst of fondness in his breast: where would he be without this man? The feeling went hand in hand with a dry amusement at his own relief that the new letters in Csevet’s hands numbered no more than ten.

“Is this all for the morning?” he asked.

“It is, Serenity,” Csevet replied smoothly. He had already divided them by priority, and he placed each upon its proper stack before Maia.

“Many thanks. Know you yet the topic of discussion in the Corazhas this afternoon?”

“Relief for the sharadansho silkmakers, Serenity,” Csevet said. “Doctor Ushenar and the masters of the Gaslight and Optometry Guilds will be in attendance.”

“We are glad to have this matter brought before the Corazhas so quickly,” Maia said. Having consulted at length with the three men Csevet had just named, he intended to push the Witnesses for two things: a mandate that the owners of the silk factories take measures to prevent, or at least to limit or delay, the loss of sight in their employees; and the provision of pensions for the silk-blinded and their dependents. He wished he could ban the making of sharadansho silk outright, but he doubted he would ever get enough Witnesses to agree.

He did, however, intend to make a tacit statement by never wearing or otherwise using the damned stuff. Let word get out, as Csevet had suggested, that he associated it with the Tethimada: it would encourage the nobles with interests in the silk trade to shift away from sharadansho with alacrity.

For his morning correspondence duties in the seclusion of the Tortoise Room, his edocharei had dressed Maia in silks that were as far from sharadansho as silk could get yet remain fit for an emperor: white, unadorned but for simple buttons and clasps, and of a weight suited for the warm late-spring breeze drifting in through the open casement doors. Csevet, too, was clad in silks, grey with the white Drazhadeise crest, of a quality befitting the secretary of an emperor. Dove-grey tashin sticks, intermediate in shade between the silks and his eyes, kept his pale hair clear of his slender neck.

Of course, Csevet could appear well turned out in stained leathers and his hair in the simplest of queues. But no tailor would have cut leathers to a courier’s figure the way Clemis Atterezh had cut the grey silk to Csevet’s, so that it clung to the lean musculature of his deceptively slim arms. Or to his narrow hips, or to the legs that could yet move as quickly and with as much endurance as in his message-running days…

“Serenity?”

Maia blinked back into awareness to catch Csevet staring at him. Or, more accurately, to catch Csevet catching him staring at Csevet. It was not the first time Maia had stared at him admiringly, but it was the first time, he was fairly sure, he’d been caught out at it.

The hue of his skin concealed all his blushes. But, after half a year in each other’s company, Csevet could well tell, and Maia knew it, that the guilt in Maia’s eyes was not merely that of having let his mind wander off as his secretary addressed him. The milkweed skin flushed a deep rose, and Csevet’s ears twitched with a faintly audible jangle of silver rings.

 _Regain thy composure, moonwitted hobgoblin, that dost not discomfit thy loyal servant any longer._ Maia smiled at Csevet with a placidity he did not feel. “After such a bitter winter, the weather tempts us to daydream of picnics and garden parties.”

Csevet returned the mild smile, his face resuming its ordinary pallor. “Quite understandable, Serenity. If you will excuse us, we must confer with Merrem Esaran on the menu for the upcoming conference with the Barizheise sea-merchants.”

“A wealth of sea-fruits on the menu, we would hope?” Maia asked.

“Unfortunately, Serenity, that may not be possible until the Wisdom Bridge is built and functional. And, perhaps, until some enterprising inventor provides us” — here Csevet used the plural — “with a means of creating ice.” Barizhan, even in winter, was too far south and too low in elevation to provide much in the way of ice or snow.

“Freshwater fish and prawns, then,” Maia said. “Or the ones farmed in Thu-Cethor.”

“Or, perhaps, Serenity, the bounty of the land? It might be a pleasant change for shore-dwellers and seafarers.”

Maia felt his brows rise slightly in appreciation. “A worthy thought, Csevet, and one that would not have occurred to us.”

This time, Csevet’s blush was the usual delicate pink with which he always met flattery. “Serenity,” he said with a respectful dip of his head, and he was gone. But not gone fast enough that Maia did not note how the silk of his trousers clung to… other parts of him. And, again, not for the first time.

He shook himself mentally as the door clicked shut. _What foolishness is this?_ demanded the astringent inner voice that kept him sure and steady. _Thou’rt no marnis, as Min Vechin and Hesero Nelaran have proven. But an thou wert, wouldst surely seek out a more befitting object for thy lusts._

And then up spoke that little, dark voice: _What man could be more befitting than one so clever, competent, beautiful, and utterly devoted to thee?_

Maia breathed out harshly.

“Serenity?” came the sharp, and disapproving, inquiry from behind him.

Maia sighed. “We are well, Lieutenant. You need not worry.”

The silence that greeted him in return was, if possible, even more disapproving than the question had been. Maia shrugged it off, as once he would not have been able to. As he had thought to himself last winter, Lieutenant Deret Beshelar passed judgment as easily as he breathed.

“Shall one of us,” and here Cala used the plural, “bring you a fan-servant, Serenity?”

“No, though we thank you for the thought, Cala,” Maia said, turning to regard his nohecharei. Cala, who smiled and nodded at him placidly, had last month exchanged his woolen blue robe for an equally shabby linen one with three-quarter sleeves. Beshelar was dressed in the lighter-weight woolen summer uniform of the Untheileneise Guard.

“What’s the clock?” Maia asked.

“Nearly twelve, Serenity,” Beshelar said. “Your luncheon awaits.” He sounded simultaneously as if the very concept of _luncheon_ were a contemptible indulgence and if he were a worried mother eager that her overly thin child eat. Maia repressed a smile as he rose from his desk and walked to the door, Cala and Beshelar in his wake.

*

The page at the doors of the Michen’theileian was a boy of perhaps thirteen. As he announced the representatives of the Silkmakers’ Guild as the next petitioners to whom Maia would grant an audience, his voice rose and fell thrice through two entire octaves. His expression remained solemn and his shoulders squared, but his face pinkened and his ears drooped. Maia wished he had the freedom to cringe on the boy’s behalf, let alone shoot him a glance of sympathy.

Instead he studied the three making their way down the aisle past the rows of courtiers. The man, whom Maia put in his early fifties, was tall and lean with a stoop to his shoulders and neck. The woman, well past sixty, wore a pair of spectacles the lenses of which had been tinted black, and she tapped a long, slender cane of ashwood before her every step. Though she, too, bore the marks of one who had spent a lifetime bending over her work, she moved more briskly than her younger colleague. Behind them walked a gangly boy a few years older than the page with a linen-wrapped bundle beneath his arm. All three wore what was probably their best ulimeire clothing, which was far less fine than the vestments of the lowliest courtier in attendance.

The whispers on either side of them, and the tinkle of dozens of rings in dozens of ears coming to attention, hung over the Michen’theileian like a cloud of gnats. The man’s mouth twisted beneath his luxuriant moustache as though, indeed, each were a bite. The boy kept his head lowered, but Maia could yet see the flush riding his cheeks, and his ears hung as low as a hound’s. Only the woman reacted not at all to the murmurings of the courtiers.

As they neared the edge of the dais, the man stopped and laid his hand on the woman’s forearm. Her well-lined face pinched with a reflexive irritation, then relaxed into blankness as she steadied her cane between her hand and the floor. The boy stopped just behind them. The courtiers fell silent.

“Serenity,” the man said. As he dropped to his knees, they emitted a creak that had Maia suppressing a second cringe. He gingerly prostrated himself and continued, “We are Odru Irizhar, Alderman of the Silkmakers’ Guild. This is Erlazho Rachivaran, former Guild Steward — and, in her day, the finest tatter of sharadansho silk in the Ethuveraz. And this is Vinka Elhaivar, one of our many apprentices.”

“Serenity,” said Merrem Rachivaran, lowering her free arm before her and bowing as low as she might without relinquishing her grip on her cane. Her voice was strong and clear for one her age; Maia thought of Arbelan Drazharan. He was glad that, sumptuously appointed as the Michen’theileian was, it was free of the silk that had cost this woman her vision.

“Serenity,” gulped Vinka Elhaivar, bowing deeply and straightening. His eyes were wide, and Maia got the sense that his mouth didn’t gape only because his elders had threatened him with dire consequences were he to let it do so.

“Please rise, Mer Irizhar,” Maia said, focusing on the alderman. “What is the concern that brings you before us this day?”

“Serenity,” Irizhar said. “We,” and here he used the plural, “wish to thank you profusely for the measures you have championed on behalf of our Guild. Many of our fellow members and their kin have been struggling as their sight has declined in the course of their work, and no small number of them can no longer provide for themselves and their own. The Guild takes up collections for them, but there are so many; our coffers are not very deep, nor the purses of most silkmakers very heavy. Your most generous advocacy has saved them all from destitution.”

“We are most gladdened that we were able to assist the silkmakers so,” Maia said, thinking back to the Corazhas session one week before. Lords Pashavar, Bromar, and Isthanar had predictably thrown out as many objections as they probably had thought of to improving the silkmakers’ lot, but Maia and the other four Witnesses handily outvoted them. Lords Berenar and Deshehar had been on his side from the outset, and the mere mention of Curnar had sharpened the faces of Sonevet Athmaza and the new Witness for the Prelacy with grim understanding.

The victory had left Maia nearly giddy, and he had had to strongly resist the temptation to smugness. With Merrem Rachivaran standing before him, what he felt was less triumph than a deep and humble gratitude. Tomorrow, he would once again take his time in the Untheileneise’meire thanking the Lady of the Stars.

“We,” Irizhar continued in the plural, “intend to commission a plaque with your image and name on it, Serenity, for our guild hall. In the meantime, we wish to present you with the merest token of our gratitude.” He beckoned Vinka forward. With hands that shook slightly, the apprentice unwrapped the linen and revealed a long summer coat of pure-white silk — _not_ sharadansho, thank Cstheio — cut in the latest fashion for men.

The courtiers murmured sharply, for though it was of a quality and style suitable for an emperor, it was considerably more rakish than was Dachensol Atterezh’s wont to create. Yet Maia could not have imagined that its creator had not at least conferred with the Master of Wardrobe, who knew Maia’s measurements — and who, like any other great artisan, would have strongly resented any encroachment on what he considered his territory. This time, he did not suppress his smile. “It is gorgeously made,” he said. “We would try it on, here and now.”

The murmurs rose in pitch and volume. Maia caught the looks of those surrounding him most closely: Cala’s, of mild surprise; Beshelar’s, of vague umbrage; and Csevet’s, utterly blank. Csevet caught himself, resumed his usual look of calm capability, and addressed Vinka: “Please, Mer Elhaivar, let us take the garment for you.” Vinka, whom Maia guessed had never been called _Mer_ before except maybe when scolded, turned the color of a beet and hastened to pass the coat into Csevet’s hands as though it were burning the skin of his palms.

Maia stood. And then he realized his dilemma: he already wore a light summer jacket, suitable for giving audiences, and the coat would not fit properly over it. Except when he answered the call of nature, the Emperor did not doff and don his clothes himself, not even in private. And certainly not before a hall full of courtiers. Yet no edocharei stood with him now to relieve him of the jacket and help him slip into the coat.

“Serenity,” Csevet said mildly, the coat over his arm. “Please, let us assist you.”

“Mer Aisava,” Maia said in acquiescence — and with heat suffusing his face at the unexpected rough note in his own voice.

Csevet’s elegant fingers made short work of the jacket buttons. He kept his head lowered to his task, as he was somewhat taller than Maia. His face seemed flushed. Well, it _did_ tend to be warm in the Michen’theileian, in summer as well as winter; Maia would ask him later if he thought it might be well to hold further audiences in the cool of the Untheileian until the return of the autumn winds.

As Maia lifted his shoulders, Csevet stepped behind him. His fingers, hooked into the lapels of the jacket, were as cool-white as they were deft. But his right palm, which rested against Maia’s right bicep through the silk for half a second, was shockingly hot. Maia suppressed a shudder, then schooled his face impassive against a stab of bewildered shame.

No sooner had Csevet folded the jacket over his free arm than he shook out the coat and held it up for Maia, who raised his arms and slid them into it. Csevet moved around to his front again and straightened the collar with, yes, fingers whose tips were as hot as hearth pokers as they brushed against Maia’s neck. Maia swallowed. Csevet gave no sign that he had noticed.

The couturier had left the coat’s many tiny buttons, each tightly covered in silk, undone. Perhaps it was just the warmth of the hall around them, perhaps it was his imagination, but Maia could feel heat radiating from Csevet’s fingertips through the layers of silk as his secretary fastened button after button, bending one knee as he descended, and dropping to that knee to secure the last. 

And then he looked up at Maia.

Maia, in turn, looked down at Csevet. Though his face was as composed as ever it was, its flush was brighter now, his grey eyes seemed unusually dark, the tips of his ears trembled nearly imperceptibly, and his lips were ever so faintly parted. Maia was suddenly glad of the length of the coat — and of Csevet blocking the Michen’theileian’s view of Maia’s lower half.

“You look most dashing, Serenity,” Csevet said in a voice so low that even the nohecharei did not hear.

“We thank you, Mer Aisava,” Maia said, and if it came out just slightly too ringingly… well, better Edrehasivar Loud-Mouth than Edrehasivar Half-Tongue, he supposed. Csevet pressed his lips together and rose smoothly. The moment was past, no longer hanging breathlessly in mid-air, but in its wake Maia felt strangely, irritatingly unsettled.

The courtiers were making _oohs_ and _aahs_ of appreciation now. Genuine or not, Maia couldn’t say, but within the fortnight he guessed that every man among them would be sporting a long silk coat of a similar cut. The couturier would have his, or her, name and fortune made by summer’s end.

What brought Maia firmly back to himself were the broad smiles of pride on the faces of Odru Irizhar and the now much-less-nervous Vinka Elhaivar. Erlazho Rachivaran wore something that was not quite a smile. If Maia had had to name her expression, he would have called it, he thought, satisfaction.

*

“We noticed you were summoned away from dinner,” Maia said. “We presume it was not disastrous news, as you would have since informed us.”

He was once again at his desk in the Tortoise Room, with Csevet standing next to him and Kiru and Telimezh at their posts in the far corners. The casement doors remained open, ushering in cricket-song instead of sunshine now, and a warm breeze scented by courtyard blossoms. In the very early hours Telimezh would be closing them, but not for very long. In another week, the doors would stand open all night.

In another week, Csethiro would be home. Excitement, then guilt, chased fondness as Maia devoutly hoped for the thousandth time that she truly was with child.

“Indeed, Serenity, it was neither distressing nor urgent,” Csevet confirmed. He had, once they were all ensconced within the warmth and semi-privacy of the Tortoise Room, undone the topmost button of his shirt. Maia resolved that he would absolutely not look at the elegant triangles delineated by Csevet’s throat and collarbones. “The courier had a letter from Dachensol Polchina.”

Maia felt his ears lift. “Oh?”

“It is in our quarters, Serenity; we have not yet had a chance to read it, as tomorrow’s Corazhas agenda and the sea-merchants’ conference must needs take priority. However, the courier frequently serves the Clocksmiths’ Guild, and she told us what she believes to be the gist: progress continues apace on the molds for the movable parts of the Wisdom Bridge, and the Guild has finally settled upon a metalsmith to fashion the tangrishi based on the artist’s drawings.”

Maia drew in a deep breath, heady with tuberose and with wonder. Not three months before, the bridge had been a battle unwon; not three months before that, little more than a clocksmith’s fancy. Now it was becoming real, in the workaday measures of ironworkers’ molds and selection processes and progress reports. He reminded himself that none but the crudest rope-bridge was built in a day, and that the Wisdom Bridge would yet take more than another year to complete. But, still, one day it _would_ span the Istandaärtha, a gigantic reality of iron, brass, and steam.

“We are very happy to hear that news,” he said.

The word _happy_ brought a faint pink glow to Csevet’s cheeks and made the corners of his mouth turn slightly upward. Maia, still elated by the news from the Clocksmiths’ Guild, felt an even sweeter warmth suffuse him entirely. Csevet’s reserve was part and parcel of Csevet, and it was well suited to his role as an emperor’s secretary; Maia could not imagine him any other way. But, he realized, neither would he at all object to seeing genuine pleasure on Csevet’s face more often.

 _Because he is a good man,_ he told himself. _Because he worked hard and suffered greatly to attain his position, and because he has served me unstintingly ere he knew me as anything other than an emperor’s unwanted, relegated fourth son._

 _Or so tellst thyself,_ said the acerbic voice within his head.

“Csevet,” he said, and Csevet’s head came up sharply at the unintended briskness in Maia’s voice. Modulating his tone, Maia continued, “I presume the coat from the Silkmakers’ Guild is with the edocharei?”

The faint look of puzzlement on Csevet’s face vanished within a fraction of a second; it might have been a figment of Maia’s imagination. “It is, Serenity,” Csevet said. “Nemer, we must say, was absolutely delighted with it.” His face softened once more, this time with a trace of fond amusement. “He began immediately to pick out tashin sticks and jewelry to go with it. The simplest of accoutrements, he said, so as not to compete with the coat itself, which he deemed ‘debonair.’”

“‘Debonair,’” Maia echoed. It was not a word he had ever, in his wildest dreams, imagined applying to himself. “Debonair” was what one called ridiculously handsome men with a well-honed sense of fashion and unassailable confidence. If Maia was surer of himself now than when first he donned the Dachen Mura, still that was a far cry from striding into a room and catching every eye for any other reason than that he was emperor.

He realized Csevet had been quiet for a long moment, and when he sharpened his gaze, he saw that his secretary’s face was once again pink. Suddenly he was back in the Michen’theileian, the coat buttoned tight over his sudden cockstand, Csevet on bended knee before him.

He wasn’t wearing the coat now, and this summer’s styles were cut, in his opinion, indecently tight. He pulled his chair closer to his desk.

“Serenity,” Csevet said, and there was an odd note of diffidence to his voice. When Maia raised his head again, Csevet continued, “We hope this is not overly presumptuous on our part, but we share the Silkmakers’ Guild’s appreciation for your advocacy on their behalf.”

Maia blinked, not having expected the sentiment. He said nothing, and Csevet, understanding his employer was waiting for further elaboration, said, “We grew up among a few silkmakers, as well as couriers and builders and the like. Our dear friend Shedra, the courier who delivered your signet ring, is the son of a silkmaker. She was like a second mother to us, after our own died birthing our youngest brother. She used to dress our hair as well as his in the ribbons she made from the scraps. He kept the habit; we did not.” Csevet smiled, this time bittersweetly, at the memory. Maia tried to imagine the milkweed hair of his proper and reserved secretary bound in blazing scarlet and utterly failed at the attempt.

“Though she does not work in sharandansho,” Csevet continued, “her eyesight has dwindled all the same. Shedra has fretted about being able to take care of her when she can no longer work. He is the most prosperous of his siblings, but he feared he would not be able to afford her doctors’ bills. Your new measures, Serenity, have taken a great deal of weight off his mind.” He paused for a moment, then said, “And off ours as well.”

His eyes held Maia’s steadily, and never had Maia seen them so warm, so unguarded. He remembered, after he had wrested approval for the Wisdom Bridge from the Witnesses, Csevet’s words to him: _Between this and Nelozho, they will start calling you Edrehasivar the Bridge-Builder._ And then he remembered his thoughts, of all the bridges he had built in his short time as emperor. Including with Csevet himself.

At this moment, he felt less as though he were standing on any bridge, much less one of his own making, than as though he had fallen into the waters beneath one. The seething waters of Daiano, swirling in eddies and sharp with an earthy, elemental scent.

 _An emperor must needs take his opportunities as they come,_ said the astringent voice in the ear of Maia’s mind’s, if it were now perhaps a bit less dry and a bit more husky than its wont. _Didst aim to gain the confidence that shades the word_ debonair _? The best way to gain it, boy, is to show it._

Before he could second-guess that voice, Maia said softly, “We are only too glad to have brought you relief.” And then he reached out and, as gently and lightly as possible, brushed the side of his hand gently against Csevet’s. At the barely audible gasp he elicited, he withdrew his hand a few inches, and he added, “Our most esteemed secretary.”

Csevet’s eyes shot wide, his mouth opened into a soft oval of surprise _(has he always had so ripe and sweet a mouth?)_ , and his throat worked visibly. Maia, watching him intently, left his hand suspended in the air. Csevet drew the very tip of his very pink tongue over his very pink lower lip… then moved his hand slowly forward until it once again brushed against Maia’s.

“We are, likewise, ever so glad you are our Emperor,” he said in a voice lower than a whisper.

With a surge of something very much like triumph in his breast, Maia curled his fingers about Csevet’s wrist and pressed the tips of them to its underside. The pulse beneath the skin leapt once, then seemed to gallop. Csevet’s eyelids settled into place again, strangely heavy, and his pupils now seemed to crowd out the grey of his eyes.

This was, of course, the perfect moment to pull his secretary down to him and kiss the breath out of him. Or it would have been, except for the fact that they would have had a captive and very uneasy audience. Maia turned his head and caught Kiru’s expression: one of the most muted surprise possible. Telimezh’s was much more evident: unlike Csevet, he blushed not a pleasing pink or rose but a splotchy, sickly red.

Maia felt steel gathering in his blood and spine, a feeling that had become more and more familiar over the past half-year. The sharp voice within him said, positively wicked now, _To match that which has gathered in thy—_ “Kiru, Telimezh,” he interrupted it, obstinately holding to Csevet’s wrist. “We request that you attend us from the antechamber and the balcony of our bedchamber, respectively.”

“Certainly, Serenity,” came Kiru’s quiet reply, overriding the faint choking sound from Telimezh’s throat. “We” — and here she used the plural — “shall tell any who ask that you and Mer Aisava are discussing court business that cannot wait till morning.” She paused, then said, with a meaningful glance at Telimezh, “Your nohecharei are the guardians not only of your person, Serenity, but of your good name.”

Telimezh stared in astonishment at Kiru. The mazo met his gaze with an inscrutable one until he dropped his head to stare at his boots.

And then there was nothing left to do but to lead them to his bedchamber and station the nohecharei outside of it. 

Maia felt deeply exposed as he pushed back his chair and stood up from his desk. _Is’t not the ultimate point of this exercise?_ queried the astringent-turned-wicked voice. _Be silent, lest thou beest relegated,_ Maia thought back at it with annoyance as, reluctantly, he let go of Csevet’s wrist — the Untheileneise Guard kept soldiers stationed throughout the Alcethmeret — and reached for the door.

Their procession through the halls was wordless and explosively, deliciously tense. They did pass one soldier and then another on their way, each of whom knelt and said “Serenity” quietly. Maia gave a brief nod to each man. He normally made a point of remembering each face, each voice, each name. Now, he could be walking across the Evressai Steppes instead of through the Alcethmeret, for all the impression its guards left on him.

It wasn’t until they reached his suite of personal rooms that his heart began to pound, and by the time they were in the bedchamber itself he thought it might shatter his ribs. He thanked the Lady of the Stars that his edocharei were all absent and presumably asleep, to be roused when they were needed. And he turned to his nohecharei and said, “Thank you, Kiru. Thank you both.”

Kiru smiled benevolently. “Serenity, Mer Aisava, we bid you both a good night.”

She walked out and shut the door behind herself with a gentle click — half a second before the casement doors to the bedchamber balcony shut quite briskly, as if Telimezh were taking no chances of them being open even a hair’s breadth. Beshelar, Maia thought, would have come within the same breadth of slamming them.

The amusement borne of that thought died immediately as Maia realized, with a pang in which fear and desire mixed like the ingredients in an incendiary device, that he and Csevet finally were alone. Together. In his bedchamber.

Not only was Csevet’s face flushed, but so was the lovely bare expanse of his throat, and even his ears. Maia did not dare look down the front of Csevet’s body, as if the moment were a magical spell that would shatter at such a glance, but if he were even a fraction as hard as Maia—

“Serenity,” Csevet whispered. He opened his lips to speak again, then closed them, swallowing whatever words he next meant to utter.

“Yes, Csevet?” Maia murmured in reply, feeling only the slightest touch of guilt that he longed to hear his supremely composed secretary trip over his own words again in his desire.

But Csevet did not answer him with words. He fell once more to one knee, and he reached out, this time taking Maia’s hand in his, palm to palm, fingers interlacing — and then he lifted it to his lips and pressed the back of it against them. Maia’s mouth fell open, and if he now looked every bit the moon-witted hobgoblin he could not bring himself to care.

Csevet lowered their joined hands and said more firmly, if still in a low voice, “Serenity. If you will permit us, we would… pay tribute to you, as a way of demonstrating our regard for you.”

 _Couriers are known to be… amenable,_ Csevet had said to Maia not many months before. He had not been a courier in years and Maia was not Eshevis Tethimar and Csevet’s desire could not have been more palpable. Yet Maia hesitated: having heard the nightmarish tale of Eshoravee from Csevet, he could not have done otherwise.

“Csevet… we are keenly aware we are your employer. And we would not take advantage of your ... willingness to please us. We would have your word that we do not.”

“Serenity…” Csevet’s expression was solemn despite his heavily lidded eyes and wet, parted lips. “You have our word, entirely. We fear nothing from you. We… we are yours, at your disposal, this night.”

He drew his tongue over his lower lip again. The unspoken _and any other night_ rang through the bedchamber like a lacquered nail against fine cut glass. Maia found himself moving to its reverberations, drawing Csevet to his feet again and against his own body.

Csevet’s mouth was hot and wet and open beneath his own, at first demure and pliant, then growing bolder, tongue thrusting out to meet Maia’s. The feel of him was one revelation after another: not just another man’s hardness against Maia’s own, but the heaving planes of chest and belly, thighs as wiry-strong and as tremorous as verashme wood, the heat of his body rising through his silks to brand Maia’s palms.

Amazed that his own cockstand had not yet rent his trousers, nor that all his clothing had not gone up in flame, Maia lifted his mouth to Csevet’s right ear and murmured, “If you are indeed at our disposal, would you… serve as our edocharis, yet again?”

The warm, beautiful smile that Maia ever so seldom saw on Csevet’s face transformed it once more. “With pleasure, Serenity,” he whispered, and he once more put his long, nimble fingers to the buttons of Maia’s jacket.

Maia once had asked Csevet to demonstrate to him how letters could be opened and resealed without their intended recipient ever the wiser. He thought, now, of the delicacy with which Csevet lifted the seal up and away, leaving not a single mark on the paper nor flaw in the wax. Csevet divested Maia of his clothing with no less delicacy and care, and with a reverence that he surely had dared not evince in the Michen’theileian. He knelt to remove Maia’s court slippers and stockings. He worked the heavy rings over the now-soft skin of Maia’s fingers and his long, glossy nails. He folded each garment and lay it on a low table near the bed. And he slipped tashin sticks and seed-pearl net from Maia’s hair with all of Nemer’s ease and grace.

After he had set the accoutrements atop the stack of clothes, he laced his fingers into Maia’s curls and gently shook them out over his shoulders. Then his hands rose, forefingers lovingly stroking the outlines of Maia’s ears. Maia shuddered and tried with little success to suppress a whimper.

“Ah, you are sensitive there, too,” Csevet whispered. “So lovely. So lean and dark and lovely, thou art.”

The words of praise had begun to make Maia glow, but the familiar address knocked the breath right out of him, sent blades of fire spinning through his belly. By the time he could catch it again, Csevet’s eyes had gone wide, his face pale, and his ears half-mast. “Serenity — forgive us —”

Maia could not repress a soft laugh. “Thou hast me naked before thee, thou’st unbound and loosed my hair, and thou beggest pardon for addressing me in the familiar?” His voice cracked with incredulity on the last word, and then Csevet was laughing softly too, at himself, a sight as rare and intimate as any other Maia had seen tonight. Resting a palm against Csevet’s still-clad breast, Maia added, “And there shall be no titles between us tonight,” using the informal first-person plural. His own voice sounded strangely deep to him, swelling to fill his chest and throat. “Know’st well my given name: asked’st it of me when first thou laid’st eyes upon me.”

“Maia,” Csevet said hoarsely. “What else wishest of me, that I might give it to thee?”

“For the moment?” Maia swallowed, then said softly, “That I might see thee bare as well.”

The pearl-grey fire of Csevet’s gaze never left Maia’s as Csevet undressed. Though he did not strew his garments or tashin sticks on the floor, the pile that ended up beside Maia’s clothing was not quite as neatly folded. Maia was not sure which he would prefer: Csevet free of every stitch with no more delay, or that his graceful disrobement might somehow go on forever. He settled on the former the moment that, at last, Csevet stood naked before his naked emperor.

He was a god’s work in ivory and frosted glass, shot through with the finest cobalt threads for veins, then breathed to life. Maia could not tear his eyes away from the moonlight-white spill of his hair, the lean thews of his limbs and torso ( _they are why he moves so like a cat,_ he thought), the tiny hard garnets of his nipples, the diagonal lines etched deeply into his groin, the pale cloud of fine hair where they converged — and the cock that rose from it. At the base it was as delicate pink as Csevet’s face when he was flattered; at the tip it was as deep rose as his face when he was flustered, and glistening with wetness. Maia suddenly imagined it filling his mouth, tried to imagine its heft and scent and taste. But he sensed that, at least this first night, his secretary would be appalled at the very idea of his emperor kneeling to him.

Instead he reached out and curled a gentle hand around Csevet’s cock, relishing the sharp catch of breath he provoked. He slid that hand unhurriedly down to the root, feeling against his palm the ridges of the veins that were much more visible through Csevet’s skin than through his own. Then he drew the foreskin down again, tightening his fist ever so slightly as he slid it over the smooth crimson head. Csevet uttered a moan so deeply open and revealing that Maia had to clutch at the bedclothes to keep from dropping to his knees and taking Csevet into his mouth.

He sublimated that urge into his caresses, working from head to base and back again, moving faster and faster. Csevet tipped his head back and closed his eyes, and Maia watched the astonishingly beautiful tableau of his face, pleasure and vulnerability and long-pent-up longing chasing one another across it like clouds across an autumn sky.

But soon, too soon, his eyes flew open, storm-wild, and his hand clamped down on Maia’s wrist. “Maia.” His voice was rough and breathy. “Maia, stop. I’ll spend an thou dosn’t.”

“And if thine Emperor commands thee to spend?” Maia breathed, pinning Csevet’s gaze with his own as he tightened his grasp. Csevet’s lips fell open, and his hand fell away from Maia’s. Maia continued to stroke him, over and over, and it was not long before he could feel the telltale spasms under the hot, pulsating skin. Csevet shut his eyes tightly, threw his head back again, and cried out once. His emission shot in one swift arc over Maia’s wrist, striking him squarely in the shoulder and upper arm, and droplets scattered to the bedclothes below.

Loath as he was to release him, Maia knew from his own body that Csevet would soon be unable to bear his touch, and he lifted his hand away. For a long moment, as Csevet stood flushed and panting and beautiful before Maia, his eyes remained closed. Then they fluttered open, still dark and barely seeing. 

Within a second they came into focus, then widened in mortification. “Ser— Maia. I did not mean to—”

“—mark me as thine own?” Maia asked softly. He’d meant it teasingly, but he was quivering like a taut wire with arousal and could not, for all his lands, work a note of jest into his words.

“Mine Emperor? Marked as mine own? Never would I presume so,” Csevet whispered. With no less than his usual grace, he fell again to one knee before Maia and took his Emperor’s arm in both his hands. “Let me cleanse thee of it.”

“There’s a handkerchief in my right trouser pock— _oh,”_ Maia broke off with a surprised moan, for Csevet had risen slightly on his knee, put his lips to Maia’s shoulder, and begun to lick his own seed from it. Maia had never imagined anyone doing something like this, thought vaguely that he should find it obscene and filthy, but it were as if the skin of his arm were as full of excitable nerves as his cock, flaring to fiery life under the caresses of Csevet’s tongue.

When Csevet had cleansed him of every drop he sank down again, onto both knees now. Maia’s fingers curled tightly into the bedclothes as he willed himself not to spend just from the sight of Csevet touching his lips reverently to the head of his cock.

Slowly, thoroughly, Csevet took him in, hands splayed out over Maia’s waist and hips and holding him fast. Maia had only ever been inside Csethiro’s body before, and the sensations had been very pleasurable even if their lovemaking overall lacked passion. Being inside Csevet’s mouth — _goddesses,_ just as hot, nearly as wet, but the feel of that tight suction encompassing him— Csevet working him deep into his throat, pulling back and playing his tongue against a tiny spot beneath the head that made Maia’s vision swim— Csevet bending his head lower to lick at Maia’s sac, which his edocharei kept trimmed nearly to the skin— Csevet slipping a spit-moistened finger even further down, sliding it between Maia’s buttocks—

Maia groaned as the wet fingertip pressed gently against his opening. The first tremors were beginning deep in his belly, his stones tightening against his body. Some part of himself resisted the idea of spending down Csevet’s throat, though Csevet had just demonstrated that, surely, he would not mind. His fingers twined into Csevet’s hair, but instead of thrusting him away Maia found himself holding him in place. Csevet’s response was to suck him harder, move his head back and forth faster, and tighten his grip on Maia— and then Maia was shouting Csevet’s name, and Cstheio’s name, and other things he would never later remember because his entire world had narrowed to the sensation of exploding in Csevet’s mouth.

Csevet did not cease to suck him, his throat contracting to take all of Maia’s seed, and held him steady through the afterjolts. As they began to subside, Csevet worked more gently, delicately lapping up the last traces so as not to overwhelm Maia’s sensitized nerves. The intent was somewhat futile, and Maia found himself pushing Csevet’s head away with shaking hands. Csevet looked up at him and licked his lips, a pearl of seed flashing and disappearing on them. Maia groaned again.

“Art content with my tribute to thee?” Csevet asked, soft-voiced and soft-eyed.

Maia couldn’t speak. He dropped to his knees on the thick carpet before Csevet and flung his arms about him weakly, burying his head in the crook of his neck. He felt Csevet’s firm breast swell with breath, and then Csevet was embracing him too, holding him closely like a precious thing — and lifting him, just as carefully, laying him on his bed, lying beside him, pressing against him from instep to lip, kissing him softly. Maia tasted himself in Csevet’s mouth and marveled again that he found it not revolting or obscene, but intimate and tender.

“Csevet,” he murmured. “Canst stay?”

“For as long as thou desirest,” Csevet whispered.

Maia’s arms tightened around him — and suddenly he found himself choking with quiet laughter. “Lieutenant Beshelar will birth an _ox,”_ he gasped, and then Csevet was shaking with mirth against him, and in the end they were giggling like schoolboys when the master’s back is turned.

“I can make thee laugh,” Maia hiccuped as they both subsided, the hilarity giving way to yet more wonder. “And have done so more than once, at that.”

“I do laugh, betimes,” Csevet said drily, drawing another chuckle out of Maia. Then his voice turned solemn. “Maia… the Empress…”

Maia’s smile vanished, and the familiar barb of guilt throbbed in the flesh of his heart. “Know’st the situation between us?” he asked, using the plural.

“I would have it from thee, rather than offer up what might be no more than rumor,” Csevet said gently, stroking Maia’s hair.

Maia flinched at the word _rumor,_ but he supposed it would not be very surprising if Csethiro’s affair with Vedero had become grist for the ever-turning gossip mills of the Untheileneise Court. “She is marno, Csevet. She has been more than dutiful to me, in the intimate sense; if hast read her letter to me, know’st already she may be with child. But her heart was long ago given in full to the Archduchess.”

Csevet said nothing at first, just continued to stroke his hair. After a moment Maia asked, “Is’t what hast heard?”

“Yes,” Csevet said regretfully.

“It is… not the worst of circumstances,” Maia said, thinking of cuckoo’s nests, of ruined noblewomen cast into the streets by their angry fathers.

“No,” Csevet agreed. “It is not.”

“I am glad for her, that she has that which I cannot ever give her. And glad for my sister, as well.” Maia paused. “By the same token, I cannot imagine she would object to… to this.”

Csevet’s body went stiff in his arms. Maia swallowed and said, “Wishest that I not tell her, at least not right away? She herself has not come out and told me plainly of her love for Vedero.”

The sigh went deep through Csevet. “Thou must. Eventually, at least.”

“Needst not fear her wrath, I do not think,” Maia said softly.

“No, I do not at all; my Zhasan is great of heart and open of mind. But… Maia,” and Csevet switched to the plural, “we must be discreet in the extreme, to which end my lady’s knowledge and assent would be vital. It is not unknown for a nobleman to be marnis, or to lie with men as well as women, but it is tolerated only if he conduct himself with the utmost discretion. In an emperor it would not be tolerated at all. Even a hint, without evidence, could provoke…” He trailed off.

“…yet another coup,” Maia dolefully finished for him.

“Forgive me my selfishness, but I cannot bear to think on it.” Suddenly Csevet’s grip tightened on him. “Thou hast no idea how beside myself I was, when Chavar and the Princess took thee,” he hissed, and Maia shivered at the tightly controlled rage in his voice. “And Tethimar—” This time the words did not trail off so much as choke off.

“Wouldst have been fourth in line for his head,” Maia said wryly. “Didst hear what Csethiro said, in the Verven’theileian.”

“I am not a violent man, nor a cruel one. But,” Csevet said coldly, “I would have watched my lady disembowel him with pleasure.”

Now it was Maia who stroked Csevet’s hair, as soft and fine as he had always imagined it to be. Softly he said, “I cannot find it in myself to condemn thee for it.” Ever so slowly, Csevet eased in his arms until all his tension was gone. He pressed himself tight to Maia, burying his face in the crook of Maia’s neck.

After a long, long while, he turned his head and brushed his lips against Maia’s, and Maia returned the kiss. Csevet’s lips lingered slightly longer the next time. Within moments their tongues were touching, then slipping into one another’s mouths to caress and explore. Maia brought up his hand to comb through Csevet’s hair, and when his fingertips brushed against the base of one ear, Csevet shuddered against him. He thought of Csevet’s words earlier: _Ah, you are sensitive there, too._

“Dost like this?” he murmured, tracing the outline of the ear until he reached its tip. He fondled it between thumb and forefinger, and it all but fluttered to his touch with a delicate jangle of silver. It was a question to which Maia already had his answer, gauging by the fresh swell of Csevet’s cock against his thigh and how he could feel the catch of Csevet’s breath through his chest.

“… very much,” Csevet managed to gasp. Maia traced a light path down the ear’s inner surface. When Csevet made a soft noise of restrained desperation, Maia, who had been just shy of half-hard, was suddenly fully erect.

Impulse and desire overtook him. He pushed Csevet down, pinning him flat to the bed on his back. Csevet’s mouth opened in a small, rosy circle of shock, but he lay unresisting as Maia leaned forward and took the end of Csevet’s right ear into his mouth.

Csevet gave an almost animal cry, broken and obscene, and arched his back like a bow. On instinct, Maia shifted out of the way, so that Csevet’s resurgent cock could find no friction whatsoever. Then he was sucking for all he was worth on the upper end of Csevet’s ear, pulling off every now and again to flick the tip with his tongue. Csevet squirmed beneath him, whimpering abjectly.

 _Thou’rt so beautiful like this,_ Maia thought as he drew his tongue up the satiny inner surface of that ear. _All thy dignity and composure, nowhere to be found._ Csevet moaned between clenched teeth and arched again, but Maia denied him any surface to grind against, even as he moved to Csevet’s other ear and began to suck it.

The moment Csevet fell back to the bed in defeat, his chest heaving, Maia reached down and encircled his cock. “Thou’rt so wet,” he whispered, thumbing the slippery and sensitive skin of the head as he would his own. Csevet made a strangled noise and bucked his hips again; Maia tightened his hand just enough to keep Csevet from rutting into it. “Dost truly wish to spend so, Csevet?” he asked softly. “Just by my hand, again?”

Csevet forced himself to fall still. “I…” He closed his eyes, as though he were marshaling his strength, and when he opened them again they were glassy. “I wish whatever you, my Emperor, wish of me.” Though his voice was just above the point of audibility, there was no missing the faint stress he placed on _you._

Maia breathed in deeply, then opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He wanted to be as close to Csevet as one could possibly be to another. And he had a basic understanding of what marnei did with one another; every so often, Setheris had indulged in metheglin-fueled speculations on the intimate habits of various other nobles. But the finer points of such activities were none too clear to him, and he would not abuse Csevet’s willingness to please him.

Csevet’s eyes watched him keenly. Choosing his words with patent care, he slowly asked, “Wishest thou to … have me? As a man has a woman?”

The words made Maia’s cock jump. But he said hesitantly, “Does it please thee, that idea? Does it not hurt?”

Csevet broke once more into his beautiful smile. “No. Or, rather, it need not, if done with adequate preparation and a generous amount of oil. In fact, it can be quite pleasurable for the man who is… taken in that manner.” Maia did not need the deepened flush on Csevet’s face, nor how his lids were hooding his eyes again, to tell him that Csevet spoke from experience.

He swallowed and, in the plural, asked, “Where would we obtain oil without bringing attention to ourselves?”

“Thine edocharei must keep it in the bathing chamber, to soften thy bathwater. They must also have creams and other unguents, preferably ones that contain no gold dust or costly perfumes.” Csevet’s face fell a bit, and as he contemplated the matter his cock seemed to shrink somewhat. “But I do not suppose wouldst know where they might keep any of those.”

Maia frowned. “I doubt I could use up all that the edocharei keep in the bathing chamber were I to live a hundred years. But it has so many shelves and drawers and cabinets, and I’ve no idea how any are organized.”

“I shall look.” Csevet rose from the bed, sinuous and fluid, and strode off in the direction of the bathing chamber. Maia couldn’t take his eyes off his secretary’s taut and shapely bottom, how the muscles in it undulated and shifted, until Csevet disappeared into the other room.

 _I will be inside that bottom very shortly,_ he thought, and suddenly he was dizzy with both excitement and dread. What if he hurt Csevet after all? What if his inexperience meant that, at best, Csevet ended up merely tolerating Maia’s attentions? Would he wish to come back to his emperor’s bed again — freely, out of desire, not obligation or loyalty or the wish to please?

More quickly than Maia had anticipated, Csevet interrupted his thoughts by returning with a thick towel draped over his arm. In his hands was a wide-mouthed jar that held perhaps two pints of a translucent, pale-amber substance. “This will do,” he said. “I marked whence I took it and will set it back precisely there later.” He smiled like a thousand suns at Maia. “Would His Serenity care to rise for a moment, that I might protect the bedclothes?”

Returning the smile, Maia stood. Csevet set the unopened jar on the nightstand to the left of the bed. He pushed the coverlets down toward the foot of the bed and spread the towel out over the topsheet. Then he turned to Maia, took him in his arms, and kissed him hungrily and hard.

They tumbled to the towel-covered bed before long, mouths still joined, hands tangling in hair and sliding over shoulders and backs and buttocks and thighs, ankles hooking around calves. Csevet’s rigid cock brushed against Maia’s, and Maia fought the urge to grind against Csevet like he’d fought no other urge in his life. He let himself gasp, “Oh, how I want thee,” and Csevet finally held him at arm’s length, face flushed and pale hair in disarray.

“And wilt have me,” he breathed. “Dost know how this is done?” Maia must have looked abashed as he shook his head, for Csevet clasped Maia’s right hand in both of his and said reassuringly, “I shall teach thee.”

Rising to kneel on the bed, he reached for the jar and opened its lid, which he left on the nightstand. The oil therein emitted a mild fragrance, somewhat like chestnuts but sweeter. Csevet asked, “Wouldst like to watch me prepare myself for thee?” Maia, his breath thick in his throat, could only nod. “Hold the jar for me, then,” Csevet said, and Maia obliged, cupping his hands around it.

Csevet crouched before Maia with his knees widely spread, balancing himself with ease. He reached into the jar, bringing fore- and middle fingers up dripping copiously. Maia watched in fascination as Csevet’s arm curled between his own thighs, wrist flexing, fingers plunging upward, Csevet closing his eyes and tilting his head back and opening his lips soundlessly.

To see so tight an orifice encompass two fingers with so little strain, even fingers as slender as Csevet’s, was fearsomely arousing — and startling, too. Maia kept reverent eyes on those fingers as they slid in and out of Csevet’s body. Their motion made a wet, filthy noise that Csevet’s quickening breath soon drowned out. His cock, which bobbed and swayed with the momentum of his hand, was so hard it must have been painful to him. The tiny opening at its tip twitched and dripped, and rivulets of oil ran down his inner thighs.

Finally Csevet’s hand emerged from between them, the fingers glistening still. With a deep breath he said, “Maia… shall I kneel for thee? Or wouldst prefer I ride thee, this first time?”

Maia’s throat worked, or, rather, didn’t work for a moment. Finally, remembering Csevet walking into the bathing chamber, he managed, “I… I would have thee kneel.” He paused. “Shalt tell me if I cause thee discomfort.”

That smile again, that Maia had now seen more times in one night than in the six months gone before. “Wilt not, I am sure,” Csevet whispered, and he turned about to crouch on hands and knees, beautiful bottom thrust slightly into the air.

Unable to resist, Maia stroked it with his right hand, cupping and squeezing the smooth and surprisingly soft skin, as Csevet murmured his appreciation and wriggled slightly. Gently, with the fingers of his other hand, he parted Csevet’s buttocks and beheld the little opening there, dark rose in color and wet with oil. Mindful of his own long nails, Maia carefully brushed a knuckle against it. It trembled, and Csevet shuddered. “Please, Maia,” he whispered. “Please. Give me thy cock.” After a second, he added, “Coat it in oil first, as I did my fingers.”

The oil was cool to Maia’s touch. He disliked that coolness as he began to prepare himself, but the heat of his body dispelled it quickly. Moving on his knees, he eased himself between Csevet’s widely parted thighs and rested one hand on Csevet’s left hip. With the other, he guided the head of his cock to the entrance of Csevet’s body and began to push inward.

The first time Maia had lain with Csethiro, he had been startled at how warm it was to have one’s fingers, and one’s member, inside the body of another. But if Csethiro had been warm, Csevet was shockingly hot, almost feverish — and much, much tighter, for all that he’d taken two of his own fingers without trouble. He tilted his hips higher and made the softest moans of pleasure imaginable, moans that had Maia seizing his cock around the base to ward off his impending climax. Yet the fear of hurting Csevet still dogged him. “Art all right?” he asked huskily. “Do I do this correctly?”

“Yes.” Csevet’s voice was low and husky. “Please, Maia, thou’lt not hurt me. Just…” His voice cracked a little. “… just _fuck me.”_

Maia had never heard another speak the word, not even Setheris at his most drunken or enraged. He’d only ever read it in a very few of the novels, the truly lurid ones, that had found their way to Edonomee. To hear this beautiful, poised, brilliantly capable man use that word, to hear him beg Maia to… to do _that_ to him— Maia groaned and, both hands on Csevet’s hips now, thrust madly into him.

“Yes. Oh, _yes,_ Maia,” Csevet said tremulously, pushing back against Maia. _“More.”_ With a broken moan, Maia crouched lower over him, gripped him harder, and obliged him.

Csevet tightened around him and thrust back against him — no mere receptacle, as Setheris had often derisively implied of the nobles he’d supposed were marnei, but as active and ardent a participant as Maia. His exquisite back pressed into Maia’s chest, muscles contracting and loosing as he moved, and within several thrusts there was a thin sheen of sweat between them. There was the slap of flesh on perspiring flesh, too, and the sound that their intimate parts made in union, not unlike the sound of Csevet’s fingers inside himself. Undignified sounds, ones that Maia had never imagined in even his most explicit reveries. _This is real,_ he thought as he drove once again into Csevet. _We are doing this._

And with that thought, he found himself near to the crest of pleasure. “Csevet…” He could barely speak, but he knew that Csevet could tell from the way Maia’s thrusts had grown shorter and choppier, his breathing rougher and quicker. He moved his right hand to cover Csevet’s, which was clutching the topsheet for purchase, and their fingers intertwined with such force that the bones of Maia’s ached.

“Yes,” Csevet breathed. “Let go, Maia. Spend in me.”

His climax took him swiftly and without mercy. He uttered a cry of exultation as he felt himself begin to spurt into Csevet, gripping his hand and feeling it grip his in turn as if they would snap one another’s fingerbones. Csevet had just begun to shake beneath him, and by his long, low groan that died out into great, shuddering and then diminishing gasps — as well as how his body clenched spasmodically around Maia’s sensitized cock — Maia perceived that he had spent as well. He marveled that he could bring that about just by … by being inside Csevet, without having touched his cock at all.

Csevet shifted his hips; Maia, having begun to soften, withdrew from him with little effort. No sooner was he extricated than he found himself on his side on a dry area of the towel, Csevet’s free arm about him and his about Csevet, and Csevet’s mouth fierce and joyful against his. But it was an eternity, and still far too soon, when their joined hands slipped apart.

*

Like a lodestone drawn to a needle, the _Erudition of Ashedro_ came to rest against the bejeweled mooring mast of the Untheileneise Court. On the ground below, Maia tipped his head back and shielded his eyes that he might view the disembarkment platform better. Despite the early hour and the light weight of his silks, he had begun to perspire under the blaze of the sun, and handkerchiefs flashed repeatedly around him as servants mopped their brows. Cala blotted his face intermittently on the sleeve of his robe. Each time he did so, Beshelar, who himself looked impervious to the heat, gave him a disapproving glare.

At last there was motion at the door of the airship. A man in a captain’s uniform walked onto the platform and took a few steps down the spiral of the iron staircase; should any of his passengers stumble, he would be there to break their fall. The first of those passengers to disembark was Csethiro Drazharan, as befit her status as Empress; her silks were as white and as filmy as Maia’s. Her eyes fell on him before any other and softened with fondness. _I shall not hope until she tells me,_ he reminded himself.

Behind her he recognized the tall, broad figure of his sister the Archduchess. Though she yet wore a black armband for their father, her summer gown was a light blue. The third woman, dressed less sumptuously than either Csethiro or Vedero, would be Dach’osmin Tativin, Maia thought. And on her heels followed two women in well-made but very plain raw silks, each bearing the device of the Tativada on her right upper arm. 

When all had alit from the airship, Maia took his wife’s hands in his. “Our dear Empress has returned to our side, and we are glad of it,” he said, meaning every word.

Cub

“We are pleased to be reunited with our Emperor,” Csethiro said, her expression mild, as she squeezed his hands unobtrusively.

“Serenity,” Vedero said. She dropped as proper and correct a curtsy as any woman ever had, and her expression and posture gave even less away in this very public venue than did the Empress’s. But there was a new undertone of contentedness to her voice, and her features no longer seemed hewn out of stone.

“Dear sister,” Maia said, taking her hands in turn. “We perceive that the sojourn to Ashedro has agreed immensely with you.”

“It has, Serenity,” she allowed, and her lips curved faintly into what, for Vedero, was a gracious and glorious smile. “Permit us to introduce to you Dach’osmin Aizheän Tativin.”

Standing upright, Dach’osmin Tativin barely came up to Maia’s shoulder; he almost wanted to beg her not to lower her height further with a curtsy. “Please rise, Dach’osmin,” he said. “We are honored to meet the lady who has given our sister so clever and elegant a telescope, and we eagerly await to hear the details of your experiments with automata.”

Dach’osmin Tativin looked utterly surprised that an emperor would want to hear about such things from anyone, let alone a woman. But she recovered quickly and said with a subdued smile on her boyish face, “We would be pleased to tell Your Serenity as much as he desires to know.”

There were a few more pleasantries, and thanks and praise for the captain and crew. Several of the latter brought the royal and noble ladies’ travel-bags down from the airship, delivering them into the hands of Drazhadeise and Tativeise servants to be carried away. Vedero declared briskly that she and Dach’osmin Tativin would be off to their rooms to settle in and would rejoin the Emperor and Empress at luncheon. And then Maia and Csethiro stood alone at the foot of the mooring mast, their remaining servants and guards at a respectful distance.

“Maia,” Csethiro said in a low voice, a soft pink flush coming to her cheeks. She was not a pretty woman, but at that moment she seemed beautiful to Maia. “I have so many things to tell to thee. So many _good_ things to tell to thee.”

Maia’s heart soared even as it pounded, and he said, “Just as I myself have … a very good thing I wish to tell to thee.”


End file.
